Bougainville:

Kiribati Missing Ship – 50 People, was there a A$369 EPIRB?

On January 18, the MV Butiraoi, a 17.5 metre catamaran ferry with 50 people on board set out from the Kiribati island of Nonouti on a two-day, 240km trip to the main island of the nation, South Tarawa. It never arrived and a New Zealand Air Force Orion aircraft has be...

Nemesis – the end of the Pacific War

Earlier this year I travelled up through the north Solomon Islands and joined a village boat across from Shortland Island to Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. I wrote it up as taking the Back Door to Bougainville, since it’s not an official entry point into the countr...

Radio Congo

What is it about the Congo which inspires such great writing? Whether it’s powerful novels (from Heart of Darkness via A Bend in the River to Poisonwood Bible), shocking history (King Leopold’s Ghost to In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz or Dancing in the Glory of Monsters)...

The Devil’s Picnic

Taras Grescoe travels the world looking for banned or disapproved of drinks, foods and substances. So he goes through a meal via aperitif, crackers, cheese, main course, a smoke, digestif, dessert, herbal tea and finally (and very final) a one-time-only nightcap
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On to Buka

My Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea trip took me via a back door entry into PNG through the Shortlands Islands. En route I had a look at the tragic history of Balalae Island and then tracked down the wreckage of Admiral Yamamoto’s WW II crash. On Bougainville I ma...